this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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Linux Gaming

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[–] BigTrout75@lemmy.world 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

"Freedom of Windows" "Power of Xbox" Good stuff. We should make some more. "From a brand you can trust" "Pro gamers choose ... " "Powered by Copilot and Game pass"

[–] And009@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 hour ago

Well gamepass on a cheap handheld doesn't sound so bad tbh

[–] cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

It the Zune for gaming.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 3 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

The one thing I took away from it was that the Xbox-button acts as alt tab. I WANT THE SAME FROM MY STEAM DECK IN DESKTOP MODE!

But in Desktop mode the Steam button does absolutely nothing while a game is running.

[–] Nilz@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Why do you use desktop mode for a game?

[–] WereCat@lemmy.world 1 points 1 minute ago

Remote play for whatever reason works far better in desktop mode

[–] krdo@programming.dev 1 points 1 hour ago

I guess you could remap them in desktop mode? I haven't tried but it should be possible.

[–] rdri@lemmy.world 18 points 10 hours ago

Players on either device will be able to tap into Gaming Copilot ...

...yeah

[–] anaVal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

This got me thinking that Valve is the best competitor to Xbox. Instead of getting to release some walled garden, single store handheld they have to open it up to other stores because otherwise people would just buy a SteamDeck.

But everyone who cares about handheld gaming already has a steam deck and this is going to be more expensive so I don't see the point anyway.

[–] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 11 points 10 hours ago

Moar power! More more more more!!!

boots up an indie roguelite

[–] OrganicMustard@lemmy.world 6 points 10 hours ago

I guess they are trying to get people already paying for game pass to buy it, because you can play everything on it. But then people won't be able to cancel their subscription or they'll have a very expensive paperweight without games.

[–] cron@feddit.org 59 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

From what I saw, it's more or less just a new app that starts when windows boots up. Plus some improvements like "the controller now works in UAC prompts" - which tells me that they didn't really learn anything.

[–] Luffy879@lemmy.ml 29 points 12 hours ago (4 children)

it's more or less just a new app

You know a reason why Linux with Steam runs just way better than win? Because they use game scope, therefore not needing to render and run all of the desktop.

So what does Microsoft do? They release a new app on top of the already bloated desktop.

[–] that_leaflet@lemmy.world 10 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Gamescope is a compositor. It has many useful gaming features, but it doesn’t have a major performance advantage over desktops like Gnome, KDE, or tilers.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The performance advantage comes from the fact that there isn't a full-fat desktop running concurrently with the game. You're booting directly into Steam.

[–] DaTingGoBrrr@lemm.ee 2 points 30 minutes ago

Performance isn't noticably worse in desktop mode on the Steam Deck compared to gaming mode. Windows is just full of bloat and has a trash power scheduler.

[–] Agosagror@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

They thinned the os, ive just watched llt video, the appear to have debloated some of it

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

They thinned the os

X Doubt

[–] fenrasulfr@lemmy.world 6 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Well according to information out there they did get permition to tweak Windows to make it much more sutible for gaming handhelds.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

that sucks, make windows lightweight for all of us.

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee 1 points 1 hour ago

Apparently it will come to all desktops.

[–] Lemmchen@feddit.org 1 points 8 hours ago

Funny how this is exactly the opposite of what they're doing, but sure, keep on raging.

[–] cron@feddit.org 3 points 11 hours ago

Yeah apparently the desktop doesn't even load when this launcher is used. But it's still an option.

I don't think not loading the desktop will really help much. Maybe it will free up a few hundred MB of memory.

[–] Chocrates@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

That form factor has me interested. Wonder if I can get something like that for the deck

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Just install Bazzite on it.

[–] cepelinas@sopuli.xyz 1 points 51 minutes ago

Then buy the rog ally.

[–] LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com 10 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

ROFL More like chains of Microsoft!

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (3 children)

Oh dear god it is apparently serious.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2025/06/08/xbox-handheld-rog-ally-x-games-showcase/

Any guesses for MSRP?

$1200 for the X variant?

$600?

Will MSFT bet the farm, take the upfront loss on the unit, and try to convince everyone this is both their next handheld and their next mainline living room console at the same time?

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Nah. The ROG Ally X they already make with windows 11 and 1 TB is $800+tax. The ROG Ally that came before it was $700 and currently sells for like $400 or so.

The 2TB Rog Ally X is about $1k + tax. I honestly doubt they can get people to pay more than that for a handheld, regardless of the Z2 chip. They are having trouble selling the ones they currently make. Add to this that Lenovo just launched the steam os variant of their newest handheld and it's significantly cheaper.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 hours ago

To be fair, the Legion S uses the Z2 Go chip, which is basically same benchmarks as a Z1 Extreme. If this uses the Z2, that's gonna be faster.

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 10 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Who the fuck announces a product on a Sunday? They must not have much hope this will sell...

[–] Gerudo@lemm.ee 10 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Today was the xbox showcase

[–] Flames5123@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 hours ago

Right? Xbox showcase is always on a Sunday. Even when E3 was a thing.

[–] anaVal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 13 hours ago

Don't worry it's going to launch with silksong. Don't really know what's the point of releasing a game along a cross-platform console but I guess the publicity is good.

[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

1200? They never expected to make a profit but they’re in too deep to turn back now.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I genuinely have no idea what either a cost-to-produce estimate would be, or what the fuck MSFT thinks their strategy is here.

I am flummoxed.

It basically uses the next version of the same kind of chips that are in the ROG Ally and ROG Ally X... no one has any idea what the actual performance of this thing will be, I'm seeing barely educated guess at ... roughly 25% more powerful, basically?

All the other specs seem identical or near identical.

Then you've also got the insane tariff situation and MSFT being both based in the US, and I think they still have their largest share of Xbox users in the US, but I'm not sure.

I guess I also wonder if they will pretend this thing is a console when it comes to software mods, and just lock down the bootloader and brick itself if you try to install linux on it.

Because... if you can just flash like Bazzite or SteamOS onto it... you get a roughly 15% game performance boost.

And then at that point MSFT will just have basically developed a product that non morons will use effectively as a competitor's platform, mainly in the Steam gaming ecosystem... not MSFTs.

I have a lot of questions about all of this.

[–] LambdaRX@sh.itjust.works 22 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

Compared to Xbox OS, Windows is very free.

[–] enbiousenvy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

yea the full sentence makes more sense. "freedom of windows, power of xbox" implies it's trying to compare to previous xbox experience, not other OS.

Although still, never had a console, but I thought a gaming PC is usually more powerful than xbox though. Or I could get mad overthinking of what do they meam by power, what do they mean by freedom. This is why I often dont like marketing speak & just disregard it.

[–] db2@lemmy.world 20 points 15 hours ago
[–] shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

We've known for a bit they were going to do this.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 1 points 3 hours ago

I'm honestly surprised they didn't do it sooner. They already had half of the work done for Xbox. Should have been relatively easy to start with just the interface for all PCs and then iterate from there.

[–] mr_MADAFAKA@lemmy.ml 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)
[–] fenrasulfr@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Everyone that is scared they can't play the most popular online games on their handheld. So theoretically a massive demographic according to research (most pc gamers play older live service titles) done but whether they would want a gaming handheld is a different question.

[–] xavier666@lemm.ee 1 points 1 hour ago

There's apparently a chunk of gamers who can't leave Windows because of GamePass. However, I don't know whether it's a significant portion.

[–] viral.vegabond@piefed.social 6 points 14 hours ago

🧐

Are they about to do some kind of shitty silk song gamepass exclusive??

[–] Covenant@sh.itjust.works 2 points 14 hours ago

Yes it is a joke